23 December 2002

on 23 December 2002 at 08:00

Adventures of wild boar end in lack of style

It is easy to jump to false conclusions when you come across a wild boar on Gorleston beach – even if the animal is dead.

The suggestion was made by the husband of the finder earlier this month that “it may have been brought by currents from a country where it is a native species”. Wise words, clearly – but are they true?

For years, people travelling near the east coast have reported seeing “large cats” or “huge dogs” crossing roads and fields in the wastes near, for instance, Haddiscoe. What if they were really wild boars?

Many have suspected that such animals may inhabit the wilder, unexplored reaches of the valley between Winterton and Hemsby, probably accompanied by the odd harbour porpoise. One of these has also been washed up in Yarmouth.

It was not quite dead, but it could reveal nothing of its origins before it tragically breathed its last.

Some have linked these strange events to global warming or, more likely, to paranormal events taking place in a hairdresser’s – also in Gorleston.

Eight workers at Mulberrys have reported seeing lights going on and off and doors banging, which could easily be the result of a wild boar blundering about, although paranormal experts put it down to the “spirit of an old fisherman from the turn of the century…shocked at the banter in his shop”.

The owner said it was the first time in 10 years he had noticed anything abnormal in the salon. A strange claim, indeed, for a hairdresser – and to my mind a clear indication that a wild boar is to blame. They tend to be extremely hairy and in need of styling.

Perhaps it gave up trying to make an appointment, shot off down to the beach and gave up the ghost.

Sad, really.

Forecast for holiday period

Here is the outlook for Christmas and the New Year. High pressure is still in charge, with showers of people ganging up and rushing round town and across the country, causing dangerous driving conditions.

There will be cyclists and pedestrians on high ground, and icy motorists in the valleys, but gradually things will settle down.

There will be outbreaks of churchgoing, but these are unlikely to have any lasting effect.

Later in the week we are expecting a series of small depressions to take over, but there will be some bright spells, especially on New Year’s Eve, accompanied by significant bursts of wind: the bars will be closely packed.

After that a return to normal for this time of year, with a number of grey days and poor visibility.

Great forgotten slogans for holiday resorts

Regular readers will have noticed the recent absence from these pages of Richard “Volcano” Meek, the Norfolk hills specialist.

He has been away visiting his great uncle, who was almost famous once. Apparently he came second in a competition to write a slogan for Skegness.

The winner, as older readers will know, was “It’s so bracing”. Quite memorable, but it could so easily have been the Meek effort that took the plaudits: “Skegness is quite nice when it’s not windy.”

Happily the gentleman in question was not put off by his narrow failure and wrote some superb slogans to publicise Norfolk resorts. Sadly, these were never used either, but I can reveal one or two at this late stage:

* Holt – who goes there? * Sea Palling and die. * Weeting just for you. * Holiday dreams and plans? Come to Wells and Burnham! * Wroxham – gateway to Hoveton. * Watton earth are we doing here? * Seething – you will be. * Diss appears in the distance. Any readers who can match these superb examples of the slogan-writer’s art should probably keep it to themselves.

Just the ticket for ambulances

Compliments of the season to Norfolk police, who have managed to issue no speeding tickets at all to the East Anglian Ambulance Service in the last 12 months.

This outburst of common sense, I am assured by a usually reliable source, contrasts sharply with the situation in neighbouring counties. The ambulances received 27 tickets in Suffolk, but that pales into insignificance compared to the 1050 they obtained in Cambridgeshire.

Apparently the tickets can be written off, but to do so the driver has to complete “between six and ten forms”.

I hope ambulance drivers in Cambridgeshire will not be slowing down in order to avoid this chore, but it is an understandable temptation. Especially if they have an injured ticket-issuer inside.

Houseago stunt ends in disaster

An attempt by Norfolk legend Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago to combine the religious and secular elements of Christmas ended in disaster, Norwich magistrates were told last week.

“Looking back, it was a mistake to try to stage the demonstration in the Autonomous Republic of Hingham,” said Houseago, 103. “I should not have trusted the local expert.”

Local expert Professor V A R Scheinlich had given the go-ahead after assuring Houseago, who was dressed as Father Christmas, that there was almost no chance of the notorious Hingham space-time distortion occurring in December, which is known to be a quiet month.

Houseago, using a hot air balloon instead of reindeer, had intended to hover above local rooftops, playing choral music intended to simulate hosts of angels, the court was told. This was to culminate in a broadcast to passing shepherds to go and find the baby Jesus in Watton, because there was no room in Hingham.

Unfortunately Mr Houseago was only a few minutes into his flight when he was subject to a massive space-time distortion and disappeared from view, magistrates heard.

He reappeared in a snowstorm close to Norwich Cathedral some hours later, clinging on to the basket, which now contained an elephant.

The court was told by Len “Kissme” Hardy, prosecuting, that Houseago was unable to account for the presence of the elephant, but claimed the balloon had passed close to West Runton thousands of years previously.

Houseago was remanded for reports. He pleaded not guilty to being trunk and disorderly.

9 December 2002

on 9 December 2002 at 08:00

In love with pieces of paper

The newts and coypu who inhabit county council corridors really love paperwork. I mean, they’re hooked on it – to the extent that they go out looking for it even when they know they don’t need to.

Take county structure plans. The Government has made a decision to abolish them, but the legislation hasn’t gone through yet. So Norfolk County Council is going ahead with reviewing its plan anyway, and has sent out letters to parish councils and other organisations, asking them to fill in questionnaires on the Structure Plan Issues Report.

The Issues Report (in case you were wondering) is a 34-page document covering issues like transport, housing and the environment.

It contains 44 questions, all of which the conscientious parish councillor is expected to answer.

Reminder: the Government is going to abolish structure plans.

Parts of the Issues Report are quite straightforward, like “Are more wind turbines acceptable in the Norfolk countryside, and if so, where?”

Others are less clear.

For instance, the economic development partnership for Norfolk has a vision.

It is “for Norfolk to have a distinctive economy, characterised by innovative and dynamic businesses, where people are skilled and motivated with the opportunities to maximise their potential in a high quality environment”.

Bad news, then, for those of us who were hoping to live and work in dull, ordinary businesses, in a dead-end, low quality environment in an unskilled sort of way without any motivation.

But perhaps we can have an influence elsewhere and say categorically whether we would “seek to promote the designation of appropriate land for habitat recreation in advance of managed withdrawal”. Tricky. We’ll think about it.

But not long, because it doesn’t matter: the Government is going to abolish structure plans. In case you’d forgotten.

Swift solution to dump horror

I suggested last week that instead of shooting speed cameras, an even more humane solution might be to put a bag on them. There remains the question of what to do with road humps, cones and unnecessary signs.

University students already do us a service by removing a large number of cones and putting them into good homes – or at least halls of residence.

Since such students may soon be in need of large amounts of money thanks to the Government’s latest bout of madness, perhaps we could pay them for this service and ask them to extend their activities.

Bagging cameras is almost as wonderful an idea as the one conceived by the gentleman who became so frustrated by the road hump that the local council placed outside his home that he used a JCB to remove it.

Astonishing, some would say. Surely road humps are beloved by all and do harm to no one?

Not quite. The JCB driver had called his council more than 30 times to complain about the “hissing of air brakes as trucks slowed down, the banging of tailgates as they rumbled over and the revving of cars as they sped away”.

Naturally, the council’s only response was that “there will have to be a prosecution”. Aren’t we fortunate in having councils that are never wrong?

Meanwhile I understand that our own beloved council has been having fun with a “massive” hump installed on the car park outside the Adam and Eve pub in Norwich.

Presumably, having been frustrated in getting a hump installed in the Garden of Eden, they thought this was the next best thing. Snakes are like that.

A solicitor tells me he spent a few minutes one afternoon “watching people suffering whiplash as they tried to negotiate the obstacle”.

After a few weeks the hump was removed, but my correspondent’s joy was short-lived. “On my last visit I found a large but not quite so massive hump which caused me to reduce my speed from an outrageous 10mph to 2mph. What a triumph for the council,” he noted. Letter to the editor

Alert readers will have noticed that whenever I write anything about traffic, pressure group Transport 2000 demands a right to reply. To save it the trouble, I have compiled a letter in response to the above article.

Dear Sir Once again you have allowed Tim Lenton to speak freely on traffic matters. As you are well aware, we have the only possible view on these things, and our statistics are infallible; so there is no need for anyone else to say anything. Road humps are a wonderful method for cutting road accidents. The faster you hit people, the more likely they are to die. If you do not print this, we will take you to the Press Complaints Commission.

Warning - ostriches, sand and sick buses ahead

You might think that as we progress into the 21st century we would gradually be getting the hang of how to deal with our transport problems.

But no – they just keep getting worse. Anyone misguided enough to want to drive from Norwich to Ipswich is going to be faced with Suffolk County Council continuing its ostrich impersonation for the next 10 years: it has earmarked nearly £84,000 a year to make it safer, a piffling amount that might possibly pay for some sand and the odd layby.

Still, this was after extensive research, so it must be all right. According to traffic and safety manager David Chenery it reflects the council’s current transport policies, which presumably must be to stop anyone in a car wanting to come into Suffolk.

Mind you, Norwich is not much better. Roadworks grind on so slowly that citizens are bound to question whether the council and contractors can be quite that incompetent, or whether they’re doing a Ken Livingstone and deliberately making life miserable for motorists. If so, they’d better hurry up and create a genuine alternative – instead of a bus service that appears to have too few buses, too few drivers and too few mechanics. Or if not too few, in the wrong place.

The other day I stood at the university in mid-afternoon waiting for a No 25 bus into the city while no fewer than five No 25s passed in the opposite direction on their way to the hospital.

Perhaps the hospital is stockpiling buses, which raises two questions: Are they sick? And is there a huge waiting list?

The answer seems to be yes and yes. And the same goes for the passengers.

Homes shortage hits rabbits

Fears have been voiced by Norfolk legend Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, 103, that the shortage of homes for local people in North Norfolk is being reflected further down the food chain.

Mr Houseago, a well-known friend of local rabbits, has noticed that prime burrows are going for inflated prices to fatter rabbits from further south.

“It is too much of a temptation for a rabbit in, say, Blakeney, when it can get a huge stock of carrots for its burrow from one of these well-heeled animals,” he said. “But it’s a short-sighted view. And local rabbits are out in the fields with nowhere to shelter. Local communities are being decimated.”

A spokesman for North Norfolk District Council said it was good for the local economy.